How The Gaia Telescope Will Scan The Entire Sky

When the Gaia space telescope launches next week, it's going to attempt the biggest astronomy project of all time: it will try and scan the entire sky, capturing images of at least a billion stars in our galaxy.

Plunging 1.5 million kilometres into space, it will do all of that with unprecedented accuracy, almost certainly transforming our understanding of the universe. But how, exactly, will it do it? This video by New Scientist gives a great overview of how a single satellite will be able to change the way we think about space forever. The short answer: a whole lot of spinning. [New Scientist]